i`ve lost count of the number of times i`ve "lost" my nano.
with a dock in the house,the studio and the car its forever being shuffled around and i ended up getting a full size 160gb secondhand on ebay purely because its the same size as most of my gadgets.
must admit the wow factor on the nano was pretty high initially-especially with the older folks!

I bought a relatively cheap (GBP30) ProSound mp3 player from Maplins.  Menu system is a bit clunky and it clearly doesn't have the Steve Jobs look'n'feel, but hey - it plays the music, and sounds ok bearing in mind this is mp3 for the train journey.  Plus it doesn't look like an i-anything so no hooded teenager is going to stab me and then nick it.  Best of all, I don't need itunes or any other mac nonsense, as the ipod was my only nod to that marketing ogre - yay!

mgh


rather than paying a premium for the Nano, i'd go for something like http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/12103211/-/Product.html seems to get good reviews and has microSD slot too. unless you need video playback. then some decent phones, i have a pair of these - http://www.whathifi.com/review/sennheiser-px100-ii

+1
 
I actually use a 4Gb one of these with an 8Gb card attached.  So it's useful for carting projects or other stuff around as well.
 
Just drag and drop wavs, flacs, or mp3's over using standard Windows methods, no iTunes tie in garbage required.
 
I picked mine up as a factory refurb for £25 and it's been bullet-proof.
 
Although TBH I haven't tried shooting it yet.

Jon, i hate iTunes, but... i have a 120gb ipod classic, which is a great bit of kit and is perfect for me, other than being a third the size of storage i would like, but iTunes...ah! I use Winamp on my DAW, not tried syncing it yet with my iPod though apparently it can. I would never get an iPhone for the same reason. Intrusive, poorly designed bloatware.

Let me know if you're planning the shoot-out JB.  Be worth a trip out to the coast if you're still there.  I killed a caravan with a shotgun (my dad said he wanted the chassis and asked us to 'remove' the body), and that was fun.  Mind you, it was also back in the day when you could fire an air-rifle at an off duty copper from your bedroom window, and expect no more than him to turn up later that day in uniform and spend 30 minutes chatting over a cup of tea and biscuit with your mum about that being an inappropriate thing to do on a saturday afternoon. Oh, happy days the early 80's were...

mgh


Jon, i hate iTunes, but... i have a 120gb ipod classic, which is a great bit of kit and is perfect for me, other than being a third the size of storage i would like, but iTunes...ah! I use Winamp on my DAW, not tried syncing it yet with my iPod though apparently it can. I would never get an iPhone for the same reason. Intrusive, poorly designed bloatware.

Thanks to recommendations here (by Chaos Choir), I've completely switched over to Media Monkey.  MUCH better than iTunes (and can handle your iPods too).